That's a fair point- I won't say there aren't any bad managers- there are sociopaths attracted to the field. But I don't think you've met any of the good ones either. I'm sorry to hear that.

> Guess who inevitably fills management jobs at medium to large companies.

The sociopath-style manager will only have short-term gains compared to the managers who've acquired the skill set for the domain. One's people will be unhappy and quit; the other's will stay and encourage friends to join. After a few years of this, when upper management want to promote to a manager-of-managers, the long-term results will speak for themselves.

That's how I lost my best manager- he succeeded so widely that he was promoted up another level (where he continued to do very well).

My advice to you is to consider how you would behave as a manager. How would you run a team of ICs such that they'd be happy, productive, and meeting all goals? It's not about whether you'd want to or not, it's how you'd approach the problem.